Watch Wolf

by Kathryn Lasky

  Toby pressed his face against the crack and looked out at Old Cags, who was staggering about, muttering something. It’s just me and Old Cags, Toby thought to himself. No, he corrected with a sudden burst of inspiration. It’s not just me and Old Cags. It’s me, Old Cags, and fear. Fear was as much a part of their small company as anything. Fear was alive, with a heartbeat of its own. There were three living things brought together in this stone prison, and one of them had to die. Toby decided to kill fear.

  His first task was to listen carefully to try to understand what Old Cags was muttering about. He tried as best he could, but all he could decipher was something about names. Dare he step outside just a bit?

  He inched out from the crack for the first time since he had found it. A blade of moonlight sliced across the ground, and he felt the cold, harsh wind on his ridiculous pink stub. Just thinking of his tail made him mad.

  Old Cags regarded him with a dazed look. Toby held his breath, but Cags did not charge.

  “Whazz name?” The words slurred.

  “I told you already.”

  “They said two names.” He swung his head back and forth, his eyes spinning and a small cataract of foam spilling onto the ground. “Need name.”

  If he needs it, I’m not giving it to him, Toby thought. That would be his first move. So he said simply, “I have no name.”

  Confusion swam in the sick wolf’s eyes. He lay down and buried his muzzle in his paws.

  Toby had just put the first nick in the pelt of fear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  BREAKING RULES

  “HOW DID YOU FIND THIS OUT? Who told you about the impending war and the cubnapping?” Finbar was fuming, but Faolan could tell that the cubnapping was not news to him.

  “It’s out there. Gossip. I heard the owls talking about it.”

  “The owls don’t know a thing.”

  This was true, but Faolan could hardly say it was a graymalkin who was the source of his information, because he would be in trouble for not sounding the alarm. And in truth, he hardly thought of Arthur as a real graymalkin. He seemed more like a confused youngster than anything else. But Faolan could be dismissed from the Ring if they discovered he had spoken to a graymalkin and had not sounded the howl alarm.

  Faolan had also not yet mentioned that he knew where the bear cub was being kept. If the foaming-mouth wolf bit anyone from the Watch, the disease would spread like wildfire. The fewer who went to the Pit, the better. Faolan’s intention had been to say that he would like to go talk to the bears, and not mention his and Edme’s plan to rescue the cub. But he wasn’t sure how to introduce the notion of a parley with the bears.

  Faolan would do anything to stop the war. He couldn’t tolerate the idea of going against the bears, his second Milk Giver’s species. It was like making war on himself. I will die before one drop of grizzly blood is shed.

  Jasper, a dark brown wolf who was the highest-ranking wolf of the Watch after Fengo, now stepped forward. One of his hind legs was half the length of the others and ended not in a paw but in a knob with claws sticking out of it every which way.

  Jasper always spoke slowly as if he were turning over each word before uttering it. “Now … young’un … this is a council of war. Whatever makes you think that you belong in this cave? You’ve been here, what” — he looked around with a musing air — “one moon, certainly less than two, and you feel that you have the right to interrupt this meeting. What could you possibly contribute in this situation?”

  Faolan was growing desperate. He would have to tell them he knew where the cub was being held. But it was Edme who stepped forward. She looked up with her single eye into Jasper’s large and handsome face.

  “Sir, I was a MacHeath. I know where they took this poor cub.” The cave grew still. “They took him to the Pit.”

  “The Pit? You mean it really exists?”

  “Yes. It does. It’s a terrible place. Let Faolan and me go after the cub.” She was careful not to mention Arthur.

  Thank Lupus, Faolan thought.

  “I know the ways of the MacHeaths, and Faolan knows the ways of bears,” Edme continued.

  “But it will be dangerous for the two of you,” the Fengo said. “Is there truly a foaming-mouth wolf in the Pit?”

  “Yes. But the danger of the Pit is nothing compared to the danger of a war between the bears and the wolves. If we can save that cub …”

  “I see what you are saying.” Finbar paused and thought for several seconds before speaking again. “I have been informed,” he said, “that the cub snatched was not any mere cub but the great-grandson of none other than Grizz, the Bear of Bears.” There were gasps as the wolves absorbed this latest information. “Yes, so you can understand how truly dire this situation is. Scouts have already brought in reports of the bears massing. If they attack, we shall have no choice but to defend ourselves. Therefore, I think it is wise that Edme and Faolan go to the Pit immediately and try to rescue the cub. But, by Lupus, be careful! If one of you is bitten, the other must leave you to die alone. The disease must not be spread. In the meantime, our raghnaid will go and seek to parley with the bears. If you can bring the poor cub back in time, we might be able to avoid war.”

  Banja now stepped forward. “I do not think it is at all advisable that we permit Edme to go on this mission. She is, after all, a MacHeath. Suppose she decides to join them.”

  “What!!” Edme and Faolan both barked in astonishment. The Fengo himself seemed to stagger upon hearing Banja’s words.

  Every hair on Edme’s pelt stood up and she suddenly seemed twice her size. “Are you accusing me of being a turnpelt? You think I want to help the monsters who tore out my eye and then killed my mother? You have hated me since the second I stepped into the Ring. I don’t know why, but you have.”

  “Stop!” roared the Fengo. “This is no time for squabbling.”

  Squabbling! Edme thought. This wolf accuses me of being a turnpelt and he calls it squabbling!

  “Banja, I do believe you’ve lost your senses. If Edme doesn’t go, how will Faolan find the Pit?” Finbar demanded.

  “How do you know she will not lead Faolan into it and leave him there?”

  There was a gasp. But before anyone could think or stop what happened next, it was as if a silver comet streaked through the gadderheal. Faolan leaped upon the red wolf and rolled her, her ruff firmly clamped in his jaws. He then held her down with both paws. “You know nothing! Edme is my dearest friend, and only a treacherous wolf would accuse her of such deceit.” The other wolves were mute with shock.

  “Off! Off! Faolan, now!” the Fengo ordered.

  Faolan released his grip and backed away.

  “Faolan! Banja! Listen to me,” the Fengo commanded.

  “Make her take it back,” Faolan gasped.

  “Don’t act like a puppy who just lost at a game of biliboo.” The Fengo wheeled around and then snapped at Banja. “Banja, you of all wolves should know better. What has gotten into you? Where is your dignity? You are a wolf of the Watch!” He was breathing heavily, as if this kind of outburst and the reprimand it demanded taxed him.

  “Banja has had it out for Edme from the start,” Faolan yowled.

  “Stop whining!” The Fengo paused as if to catch his breath. “Now, both of you listen to me! The war is not in this gadderheal!” Finbar tossed his head toward the entrance. “It’s out there. I will not tolerate such behavior. You go and make paw right — this instant!”

  Paw right was the traditional gesture of making amends, setting disagreements aside, and reconciling with one’s adversary. Each wolf was required to take three steps toward his or her opponent, then lift a paw and touch the other’s paw lightly.

  The two wolves approached each other as was prescribed. But when Faolan lifted his splayed paw, Banja made no move at all. Her eyes clamped onto the pad with the spiraling marks. She seemed transfixed and began to tremble.

  “Banja!” the Fengo said sharply.


  “I can’t touch it, honorable Fengo.”

  “You can or you shall be dalach’d.”

  The wolf swallowed and finally lifted her paw and fleetingly touched Faolan’s, then turned and stumbled away.

  Faolan and Edme left immediately. Arthur flew overhead. He seemed like a different owl from the one Faolan had snatched out of the sky, mewling and frightened. It was as if he had grown up overnight, even acquired a slight measure of dignity. He took his job seriously, although he would not need to fly cover until they entered MacHeath territory. At the moment, Arthur was flying a quarter league ahead. But they saw him carve a turn and head back toward them as he sailed over a high ridge.

  “He’s flying fast!” Faolan observed. “What do you think he’s found? Certainly not MacHeaths yet.”

  “No, not yet,” Edme replied.

  Arthur landed. “Bears, hundreds of them! You’ll see them when you get to the top of the ridge.”

  “Oh, Great Ursus!” Faolan whispered at they scrambled up the shale slope. It was as if a dark ocean were rolling in from the west. He had no idea that there were so many bears in the Beyond. “They’re marching on the Ring!”

  “Let me find out,” Arthur said. The Spotted Owl spread his wings and lifted into flight.

  This is my chance, Arthur thought. I’m tired of being bullied. Made fun of because of my wing tip. Had he been born a wolf rather than an owl, he would have been flung from the nest. But Faolan and Edme had returned stronger, braver than ever. He wasn’t sure if he had it in him to be really brave. Courage was a strange thing. For some, it came easy. But could there really be courage without fear? Was it courage that had made him take the dare to dive for the ember? Or was it something else — a poor imitation?

  What had he hoped to gain? Respect? Glory? Not really. Just to be liked, accepted. How pitiful was that? Halfway through the prank, he began to realize how stupid it was. He had seen Faolan looking at him while he was cratering, and had begun to wonder if he could gather up his nerve to tell the wolves of the Watch about the cubnapping he’d witnessed. He’d been just about to fly down to Faolan’s cairn, when suddenly that wolf was on him. He’d never seen a wolf jump so quicky or so high.

  And what would he gain from his latest adventure? He wasn’t sure, but he was certain that a war between the wolves and the bears would crack Faolan’s gizzard. Of course, Arthur knew that Faolan didn’t have a gizzard…. Marrow! That was it. The wolves were always swearing oaths by their marrow. But Arthur’s own bones were hollow, so he swore by that organ most revered by owls. By my gizzard, I must help stop this war!

  At that moment, Arthur knew he had crossed some invisible line. It was no longer simply about himself and his poor wing tip. His actions were on behalf of someone else and something larger than himself. There would be no glory, just hard work.

  When Arthur drew close to the first line of bears, he swooped down low, swiveling his head one way, then another, to pick up conversation that might help. The words and language didn’t differ that much among owls, bears, and wolves, but Arthur’s ear was unaccustomed to the thick, rumbling brogue that ran through the bears’ speech like the muffled roar of an underground river. He turned his head toward the southwest, and in the glimmering light of the dawn, he spotted the first of the wolves from the western Beyond approaching — a dark swagging line on the purpling horizon. “Great Glaux!” Arthur murmured. “They’re coming from all over!”

  Arthur was gone only briefly before Faolan and Edme saw him streaking his way toward them again.

  “He came back,” Edme said. “I thought he might fly away.”

  “He certainly had every chance to.” Faolan paused. “But I had a hunch he wouldn’t.”

  Arthur alighted on a flat rock, shoulder high to the wolves. “The bears are heading south and east. Toward the Black Glass Desert. It’s their rallying point, and there are wolves going, too. Something about a gaddergludder. Not sure what that means.”

  Faolan and Edme looked at each other. “A rally — a wolves’ rally before a hunt to raise the marrow and the taste for blood,” Faolan replied.

  “It’s war,” Edme said quietly.

  “It must be. The Fengo and the raghnaid must … must …” He could barely utter the words. “Must have failed in their parley.” The Fengo’s voice echoed in their minds: Words are cheap!

  “How long do the bears rally before they attack?” Edme asked.

  “A day and a night, I think,” Faolan answered. He tried to remember stories that Thunderheart had told him about bear rallies. But of course, there had never been a rally for a war with the wolves. They’d only been for small fights over territory.

  Faolan had one thought: No war. He had one speed — attack speed, not press-paw. For Faolan, a war of sorts had already begun, a war between his wolf marrow and his bear heart. This was a war in which there would be no winners or losers. He would lose all, and win nothing.

  So it was at attack speed that Faolan and Edme set out for the Pit, where the cub was held hostage by Old Cags. As they traveled, Edme explained as best she could about the peculiar torture chamber the MacHeaths had devised.

  “I’m not sure why Old Cags never died of the foaming-mouth disease, but he didn’t. The clan feeds on terror, brutality. Old Cags has become — how should I describe it? — their talisman, their charm, for young rebellious pups. They come out of the Pit with eyes like stone.”

  “Moon blinked,” Arthur said.

  “What?” Edme asked.

  “Moon blinked. Before I was hatched, there was this bad place where some owls — bad owls — would take baby owls. It was called St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls. But the truth was, the owlets weren’t orphaned, they were snatched. The bad owls took the babies to a place in the canyonlands that sounds a lot like the Pit. It was a deep, deep canyon, and they made the babies walk around at night under a blazing full moon. It did something to their brains. They couldn’t think. They could only do what they were told.”

  “Moon blinked, you say,” Faolan said. And he quickened his pace.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE PIT

  FAOLAN’S PLAN WAS TO RESCUE the cub and take him to the Black Glass Desert as quickly as possible. Surely, there was time. They had left shortly after midnight, and thankfully the wind was with them. At this speed, they could rescue the cub by the next dawn, and just possibly make it to the Black Glass Desert by evening.

  Edme was intensely worried. Although she had never seen the Pit with Old Cags staggering about in it, she knew it was deep. Even though bears were much better climbers than wolves, it was said that the walls of the Pit were so sheer that climbing them was almost impossible.

  There was a hidden trail in and out of the Pit, but how were they to find it? Old Cags’s brains were such mush that he’d never found it in all the years he’d been there.

  To add to all this was the problem of completing the rescue before war broke out between the wolves and the bears. Edme felt her marrow melt whenever she thought of it. But the anguish in Faolan’s eyes was worse. She knew that to go to war with the bears would destroy Faolan in a way no foaming-mouth wolf or even the crushing blow of a grizzly bear could.

  They traveled at attack speed as long as they could, then slowed to press-paw and ran on through the night. Just as the first rays of dawn peeped over the horizon, they arrived at the rim of the Pit. Faolan scrambled to the top of an outcropping and looked straight down. He saw the foaming-mouth wolf staggering along the east wall of the ravine, but there was no trace of the cub.

  Then, after several anxious minutes, they saw a smudge of something emerge from the sheer rock wall. It was the cub.

  “No name!” yelled the cub.

  “Name!” screeched Old Cags and gathered himself to charge. But the little cub did not even flinch.

  “Amazing,” Edme whispered.

  “It’s a standoff.” Arthur alighted on the outcropping. “I’ve been hovering here for a while.
It’s strange. There’s a slot in the stone wall, just big enough for the cub to squeeze into.”

  “And not Old Cags?” Edme asked.

  “I think he could if he was able to aim true for it. But you see how he staggers about. Something’s wrong with the way he sees. But the strangest thing of all is how he keeps asking the cub his name. The cub won’t tell. Just comes out and shouts, ‘No name!’ and this sets Old Cags off. The cub doesn’t seem that scared. And every time he comes out, I can see that he’s scanning the rock walls for the trail out.” Arthur paused. “And I think I’ve found it.”

  “You have! Arthur!” Faolan exclaimed.

  The Spotted Owl led them to a snarl of brambly bushes. “If you can slither under those on your bellies, a path widens out and then pitches almost straight down. Be careful.”

  “Let’s think this out,” Faolan said. “It might take us a bit of time to get down there. But once we do, we’ll need to distract Old Cags.”

  “I can do that,” Arthur quickly offered. “I can fly in. Go for a few kill spirals. Back loops. It’ll drive him crazy.”